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Badeendje ,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

Scary to think that the answer will be no.

BeMoreCareful ,

Makes you wonder about ice cars too.

NarrativeBear ,

Maybe just in terms of their electronics, such as updates and extended services.

I do wonder if things like heated seat subscription in EV’s and ICE car’s will keep functioning after the company disappears.

Jrockwar ,

Probably not. But that’s what happens when you buy Things as a Service.

ThePantser ,
@ThePantser@lemmy.world avatar

Seems like that is ripe for a class action. If a piece of hardware ceases to function if you don’t pay a fee but then the ability to pay is denied or removed the hardware should default to functioning. Come on EU, this is right up your alley, let’s get some laws made over there so us lowly Americans can benefit!

bizarroland ,

It's not even a difficult law to pass, "if a cloud service goes out of business, its software becomes public domain. If the company is acquired, the sale must include a promise to keep the services operational for the full lifetime of the product unless the software is public domained"

can ,

The difficulty is in explaining what any of that means to the people who make the laws.

AmbiguousProps ,

Absolutely, in that the more software in a vehicle, the more likely it is to brick once a company folds. ICE cars are less likely since they don’t have most of the software, but there are some that are computers on wheels still (and I’m sure the amount will continue to increase).

UsernameHere ,

ICE vehicles have more software because they have more components. They have a transmission control module and an engine control module both of which have a lot of sensors to read and outputs to control. Much more than a simple EV would have.

ShepherdPie ,

Yeah they’ll likely end up melting once global temperatures rise high enough.

simplejack ,
@simplejack@lemmy.world avatar

Depends on the manufacturer. A lot of American and European “smart” cars work fine without an internet connection. You need to use a key fob, and apps cloud maps or streaming apps obviously won’t work, but the basic driving, climate, and media stuff should work.

A lot of American and European cars actually kill your cloud service access if you don’t keep paying a subscription fee.

Gork ,

I have zero use for a cloud connected car lol.

KairuByte ,
@KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Cloud connected cars are essentially what happens when companies refuse to admit smart phones are superior for 99% of the stuff they want their car to do, and the other 1% is subscription bullshit.

ShepherdPie ,

Nah they’re using that cloud connection to spy on you and make money on the backend by selling your data.

Badeendje ,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

I think they keep an IOT connection alive to get the data they need from the car, they just kill your enjoyment of it. What happens if it would truly drop, your guess is as good as mine.

And that is with vested manufacturers. With startups it could be much worse.

DirkMcCallahan ,

I look forward to the day when my refrigerator stops working because the company went bankrupt, or because their server was down.

RobotToaster ,
@RobotToaster@mander.xyz avatar

Samsung are pretty close.

Blackout ,

That's not on purpose they are just defective shit boxes engineered by the cheapest guy on fiverr

Seraph ,
@Seraph@fedia.io avatar

As long as they're a smartphone on wheels the answer is no.

We want real cars again, even if electric.

danc4498 ,

My smartphone still works without service. Just as a tablet/computer device. Cars should be the same.

akilou ,

If Google or Apple went out of business (depending on which phone you have) you’d stop getting updates and it’d stop working.

danc4498 ,

Would it? In what way? Sure the App Store would be done. But apps I current have and safari would be fine.

akilou ,

Think of all the Apple shit your phone depends on. iCloud, iMessage, any time you have to authenticate with your apple password. Probably a bunch of other iBullshit that I’m not familiar with because I don’t have an iPhone. At the very least, your OS would stop getting security updates, and like you said, you wouldn’t have an app store to push app updates. Some stuff would break immediately and other stuff would degrade over time.

Now imagine it’s your car

TimeSquirrel , (edited )
@TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org avatar

My NES hasn't received an "update" in the 37 years since it was manufactured, and it still runs fine. So does my Tandy 1000 PC. Didn't even have to replace any capacitors. This is what we want. Some time 15-20 years ago we started taking the wrong path with our tech.

I am old enough to remember appliances coming with full schematics printed inside their cases.

Blaster_M ,

Electronics age out over time. The old stuff, made with more materials, take longer to age out. However, the old stuff does not have even a smidgen of the performance or power efficiency the modern stuff does.

TimeSquirrel ,
@TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org avatar

Capacitors age because they are filled with liquid electrolyte, which dries out over time. Batteries age for mostly the same reason, and the chemical reaction slowly becomes irreversible. Those are easily replaceable. However, an integrated circuit is just a wafer of silicon. A piece of sand. It's going to take a long, long time for that to degrade. If it weren't for needing constant software updates and cloud connections to be useful, an iPhone could theoretically last a hundred years. "Tin whiskers" may also be a problem, but we are talking decades before you have to worry about that.

I don't think your theory about old things lasting longer because there is more mass to them is correct though. It really sounds like you are making that up because it sounds good in your head.

Blaster_M ,

The larger components have more space between them… it takes longer for the “tin whiskers” to grow and become a problem. That and these old devices ran at higher voltages, so they have more tolerance to minor voltage fluctuations. Also, plastic does degrade eventually, copper traces can corrode, etc. Build quality matters, too.

viking ,
@viking@infosec.pub avatar

Not at all. It would maintain functionality at the current status quo, and browsers would still receive updates and keep current with server based technology. If anything required additional components to use new technologies or display novel applications, that would be a hardware based change that won’t be fixed through a system update regardless.

You can still browse the web just fine on a phone from 2010 running Android 2.3 - many applications are now unsupported, but if Google (or Apple, for that matter) were to stop updating the OS, then application developers would stay at the current technology level that make hardware upgrades unnecessary.

Some apps that require google services (I’m sure there’s an equivalent for iOS) might no longer work, but most run just fine regardless.

If security is what you’re getting at, at least for Android, there are excellent third party solutions that keep attackers out even on an end of life device (shoutout to Hypatia).

Lost_My_Mind ,

As a member of /c/FuckCars I say we don’t want cars at all. We want robust public transportation, and bicycle paths. Entire cities designed around going green. People want to get angry at the Starbucks CEO for using a private jet, and reasonably so, but NOBODY wants to take responsibility for the toll each car puts on the environment. Yes, even the electric cars. That electric energy still has to come from somewhere.

tpihkal ,

That doesn’t work for people like me who might drive 10 miles to work and then at the drop of a hat have to travel to another location 60 miles away, then have to travel back to the original location before the end of the day.

ThePantser ,
@ThePantser@lemmy.world avatar

Not advocating for the previous comment but commerce would adapt no matter the change. Your job would either change your job duties and or hire someone at the other locations or they would find a way for you to work remotely. Who knows maybe banning cars could be the push our society needs to build avatars that we can control from remote locations.

Uh I’m gonna go watch some avatar now. I’m stoned enough that it might be good.

Drewelite ,

What if they’re an electrician/plumber/repair man that needs a full kit of equipment and drives all over town. A contractor building a house transporting materials. A school/church/daycare transporting kids that doesn’t want to have them loose on public transport. Garbage man. Emergency services. Food delivery. Etc

Drewelite ,

Or if anyone’s job or hobby requires transporting more than can be carried on a bike trailer. Anyone living rurally. Anyone famous. People with mental conditions exacerbated by being enclosed with strangers. All that being said, I’d love to see a shift towards it being more popular.

tpihkal ,

I would also love to see huge improvements in public transportation, especially around me where the last bus route leaves at 6:30 pm. The only time I would actually consider riding the bus again, it’s already shut down.

The reality, though, is that public transportation cannot replace cars for people that need them. And if you live in the United States, it’s just too damn big, and at least 20% of the population will probably never see public transportation as a viable option.

SteveFromMySpace , (edited )

Exceptions can be made just like we make for all kinds of commercial vehicles.

It’s true what folks say: whenever someone mentions a bike path, everyone suddenly has to transport a refrigerator uphill in the rain.

Not_mikey ,

That would work if we invested as much into public transit as into cars. This goes back to designing cities for public transit instead of cars. If we did that with the money we currently are putting into cars we could have high frequency metro lines where inner city interstate / highway routes and high speed rail for inter city interstate/highway routes along with frequent bus service in the cities/towns on the lines. We think public transit is inherently slow and unreliable but that’s because we never invest enough money to make it fast and reliable.

tpihkal ,

I’m guessing you’ve never lived in rural America? I don’t think you’re grasping how big the world is for some people. I have to drive three hours to get from my urban home to my favorite mountain bike trail in the mountains.

ItsComplicated ,

Public transportation does not operate in the middle of nowhere where the closest store is more than half an hour away.

Lost_My_Mind ,

It will when we fund it. If 100% of the people require public transportation, then 100% of the people will want that transportation to be funded as well as it can. Kind of like how even out in the sticks you have plumbing, and drinking water. Imagine if only 10% of the state needed plumbing. It wouldn’t get funded well enough to cover you guys out there.

can ,

We need to start smaller. Have you been to many remote, rural areas?

niucllos ,

Look, I’m with you most of the way in theory, but a lot of rural areas don’t have plumbing and drinking water from public utilities, they have their own septic and water wells. I know it’s pedantic but a lot of parts of the world are so rural that it probably doesn’t make sense to have fully public transport, like it doesn’t make sense to have centralized water. The scope needs to be great systems within towns and cities and lots of park and ride hubs around the perimeter

catloaf ,

Name checks out. I’m all for public transportation, but to think that it will eliminate cars is nonsense.

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

That’s a nice thought, but not reality in many places.

We can work on both.

model_tar_gz ,

You people proselytize more than Linux evangelists and perhaps even Mormons do, and not even as entertainingly. Even if I agree with you, I don’t want to hear about fuckcars in every damn thread.

biptoot ,

Yep. This exactly.

simplejack ,
@simplejack@lemmy.world avatar

This is not just something that can impact EVs. NFC door locks, smart infotainment, displays for gauges. None of that is EV specific these days.

These cars were clearly not designed to work without cloud connectivity and or an authenticated account. That seems bonkers. China is huge and has lots of remote areas. How were these cars going to work when they couldn’t phone home?

IMHO, a lot of cars have gone way overboard with “smart” features, but this manufacturer’s problems are the result of cutting corners and not designing for some common use cases.

FierySpectre ,

At least the cars can be updated (at least until the manufacturer says fuck it). A ton of those ‘smart’ devices have no such capability so when a vulnerability is found it won’t ever be fixed.

simplejack ,
@simplejack@lemmy.world avatar

This is why I won’t touch a car that doesn’t have Android Auto, CarPlay, etc. I want to be able to update my audio apps and maps, even when the manufacturer decides to stop updating my head unit.

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

Disposable cars is where we’re headed. We allowed it with electronics, why wouldn’t we allow it with cars?

simplejack ,
@simplejack@lemmy.world avatar

The ages of cars on the road has been increasing. As reliability and prices continue to go up, more and more people hold on to their cars.

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

When they can. They may not be able to in the future.

simplejack ,
@simplejack@lemmy.world avatar

Maybe. I don’t know of any other car brands that totally shit the bed when the cloud services get cut off.

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

How many have been cut off? Fisker will probably be first to go.

simplejack ,
@simplejack@lemmy.world avatar

To be fair, Fiskers are likely to brick themselves and the company is still alive. They have some of the worst software in the auto industry.

That said, my point is that a lot of “smart” cars are designed work just fine offline. Being offline is common in rural areas and or when the driver decided to stop paying for mobile connectivity.

I’ve done the latter with a couple cars. You lose the ability to download new maps, see traffic, install updated streaming apps, and or remotely control climate / windows / locks with your phone. But I use my phone for music maps, and I don’t really care about unlocking the car with my phone.

viking ,
@viking@infosec.pub avatar

NFC door locks have a sliding panel with a key override. Usually a shit lock that can be opened by any amateur… One of the many reasons I don’t have one.

simplejack ,
@simplejack@lemmy.world avatar

Probably just should said “phone key” instead of assuming NFC. It looks like a lot of these cars use other technologies to unlock without a fob.

T156 ,

Or when the network that the car relies on no longer exists. My old e-reader’s mobile connectivity no longer works because the phone company providing the service turned the 3G network off in the upgrade to 4G.

It’s just 17 years old. People tend to keep cars for about that long. What happens then? Does it just become limited to basics only, or become a big metal brick?

knobbysideup ,
@knobbysideup@sh.itjust.works avatar

I’m pissed that even non-ev vehicles make it impossible/expensive to swap out the head unit for something you like.

ThePantser ,
@ThePantser@lemmy.world avatar

Aw yeah we need the right to repair on that pronto. Like climate and infotainment should be totally different systems and control panels. A car should function 100% with the infotainment system offline.

bizarroland ,

I'm looking forward to the "how to hack your Tesla to 100% operational functionality using a raspberry pi 9 and this dongle, run your car with your phone!" youtube videos (or whatever streaming service steps over its flaming corpse to replace) it in the next few decades

aniki ,

Should be happening now but I understand these things take time.

cygnus ,
@cygnus@lemmy.ca avatar

People have already been jailbreaking Teslas to unlock full self-driving, which is a $10k software patch.

viking ,
@viking@infosec.pub avatar

Wait, a Tesla in its default configuration doesn’t allow self driving?

BakerBagel ,

Aside from cosmetic upgrades, all Teslas are essentially the same, just with certain features disabled/pay walled. So your base model 3 has the exact same battery as the top of the line version because it is cheaper to manufacturer them all that way.

logi ,

That’s just not true. Go to ev-database.org and compare the dry weight of the different models. You don’t add 66kg going from standard to long range in software.

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

I’ve been waiting years for Tesla hacks to add power or remove Autopilot or remove software-locked batteries or unlock paid features. Haven’t seen it anywhere.

IMALlama ,

ingenext.ca/products/boost-50

50 hp for $1k

I can’t find them right now, but there are similar things you can buy to unlock factory features at a discount.

ShepherdPie ,

And somehow the RPi9 will still need some $90 5V20A USB power supply

altima_neo ,
@altima_neo@lemmy.zip avatar

Looking at Aging Wheels YouTube channel with his fleet of non working Wheegos, the answer is no, they won’t.

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

Might for a while. Eventually theyll need replacement parts.

Brkdncr ,

I think ford and gm have turnkey crate motors and I suspect the vehicles have the same systems. Might be fun problem to solve.

ShepherdPie ,

I don’t think it’s too far out of the realm of possibility considering numerous people buy crashed/scrapped EVs and adapt them into old vehicles or modify them into Franken-cars on Youtube.

tal , (edited )
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

I think that that can be generalized to:

“When <cloud-connected device company> shuts down, will their <product> still work?”

Cars are a particularly problematic example, because they have a long life and are expensive, but generally-speaking, I think that when someone buys a cloud-connected device, it’s a good idea to think “what exactly is going to happen if this company goes under and stops providing online services, or just discontinues service at some point” at the outset.

Might be cars or smartwatches or live service video games. They all run into similar issues.

viking ,
@viking@infosec.pub avatar

Yep, and precisely why I refuse to buy anything that requires an internet connection to work. I’m even wary of services that lock me in for longer than maybe 6 months. The only annual subscription I have is for my VPN.

An actual device/machine that I plan to use for years? Hell no. Offline only is a must have.

T156 ,

A car is also difficult to ignore, compared to something smaller.

A small expensive device that stopped working because the company shut it down is annoying, but you can at least put it to the side and ignore it.

You can’t really do that to a car that has functionally become a paperweight because the parent company has gone under.

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